We have another engine update for you before we release the content/balance update. Version 0.89_14.

The new version contains dozens of fixes and lots of cosmetic and small gameplay changes. Sadly saves are not compatible.

You can find the updated version at the usual place!

Things are looking good!

At the moment our graphics team is working on tropical art for the game. We originally thought that we won’t be able to have special “not truly needed” graphics in the game but it looks like we will be able to put in a lot more art! (people sitting at the inn table, children npcs, fat npcs, birds flying around, etc) We made sure that Balrum has interesting and deep history and if you choose to read everything you find in the game you will be able to discover three thousand years of history.

In the beta there are three music tracks that play in the game (there is four but only three actually start to play). We hope that we will have at least 10 tracks at release.

We still don’t have an official release date, but we are aiming for a summer release! Back to the content update for us!

Monday - December 22, 2014

Balrum - Version 0.89 Released

Version 0.89 of Balrum has been made available, which fixes quite a lot of smaller things and because of those many changes, the save games aren't compatible either. Some of the changes:

-Increased world simulation size (NPCs will be more active with their daily lives) -New NPC behaviors (for example: the town guards will turn on torches around the villages at sunset) -Your pet is now smarter and he/she will be more precise while performing your commands -Added a “Select” button to the pet bar -Added a reset button to the blacksmithing panel so you can easily restart experimenting -Added sliders to the GUI making navigating lists way more comfortable -Added a large number of GUI goodness (fading panels, nicer effects, more precise control) -When a friendly NPC is in your way (standing in a door for example) you can push him/her so you don't have to wait for them to get out of the way -More zoom options -Added a “stackable” property to item tooltips if needed -Added a faster combat animations toggle button to the options panel -Added ability to simply press “enter” when the usage is obvious -The spellbook now reorganizes itself when a savegame is loaded filling the holes that might have been present do to “one cast” spells -Now you are able to destroy your tent -New targetless AOE spell effects for certain mobs (be careful where you are standing agains a skeleton warlock) -While in combat if you point your cursor at your pet you will now see its health and mana -Added new “gameplay” tab to the options panel -Good/Bad deeds are now logged -Traders now refresh their inventory every other day -More sleeping NPCs (finally female NPCs go to sleep too) -Pet agro now grants a small amount of agro towards the player (when the pet was the only combatant, upon dying the enemy did not go after the player) -Wind now affects berry bushes too -Not every animal attacks you on sight any more (there are peaceful monsters out there) -Numerous small map changes -Added spells with random cooldown times -Faster startup times -New internal datatypes for large data -Lower memory usage -Overall performance improvements

Monday - December 01, 2014

Balrum - Version 0.88 Released

by Myrthos, 10:31

Version 0.88 of Balrum has been released and with this version all reported problem reports are apparently fixed.

-Finally the 2x zoom option does not make the mouse super fast. -There is an “always walk” feature for your convenience. (default key for it is X) -In the options panel you will find a new toggle button for increasing the size of the cursor. -Right click menus now have a close button. -When it's raining you can catch some rain. (camping button) -Entering the escape menu now pauses the game. -We disabled the minimum resolution checking when resizing the window. (Linux users reported strange behavior) -There was a rare bug with looping sounds. Now the sound system should properly stop every looping sound effect.

If you copy your saves folder please delete your old config file! Savegames are compatible with this release.

Balrum - Mega Update Released

It is way past the release date. Sadly we have to announce that we need more time. We need at least a few extra months. We don't want to release an unfinished product. Balrum has to be polished!

There is good news too! Balrum is getting much bigger and we are adding extra features along the way. The remaining chapters are coming along nicely and we have a big update for you right now.

We would like to ask you guys something. What do you think about an open beta for all backers? The beta version has been out now for a long time. We are way past the release date so we think that we should at least give the beta to those who bought the game but had no beta access.

The beta does not include backer specific and backer created content. The content created by you will be in the final product.

The upcoming update!

We are making steady progress! The remaining bugs are fixed and the content update is on it's way!

Here is what you can expect from the next beta update:

Every skill is redesigned and now the skills have more meaning. Every skill has a detailed tooltip explaining the skill.

The unfinished quests are now finished: (spoiler ahead!!) For example: The sick troll quest is now completable by curing the troll (various ways) or by killing it.

Building your home has been heavily altered. Now instead of being able to build a house in specific places, the story will reveal a safe place for you where you will be able to build your own home early on in the game. A build button has been added to the main bar.

Hundreds of new sound effects are in the game.

Lore bits are finally in the world! This means that you can find old letters and documents that the long forgotten inhabitants of Darkwood wrote. We think that reading these texts will help you understand the history of the woods and Balrum.

All crafting systems have been redesigned. As we mentioned in our first beta update the crafting systems were really primitive. Now we feel that we have well working and more comfortable crafting systems for you!

Now there are recipes/schematics hidden in chests and other places in the world that you can learn from.

Translation support is finally complete! All text in the game is now accessible via simple xml files.

New AI behaviors are implemented. For example: a mainly ranged enemy will try to use it's ranged abilities more often than it's close combat ones.

There are already many mini games/puzzles/secrets in dungeons. Now there are a few of them above ground too. Some of these puzzles are only completable if you read the lore bits and find the information you need to solve them.

Special weapon and armor properties. Quite a few weapons now have special on hit effects and give the player various attributes. There are armor sets in the game now. These sets will give the player extra attributes and effects if a certain amount of the set pieces are equipped.

Information! There are small helper tooltips where there should be one. These will help you understand how certain mechanics work in the game.

Item tooltips now tell you more about the item. For example the tooltip of a potato will inform you about how nutritious it is.

Combinable items are now more useful! There is a new combine button on the main bar. This button will bring up the item combine interface. You will be able to create items that do not require a special crafting facility. For example: fire arrows, torches..etc

The character panel is redesigned and the quests menu finally has been updated too.

In the upcoming weeks we will send everyone who pledged more than the base game an email regarding their rewards. Some of you have already sent us ideas and descriptions about what you would like your npc,monster or special item..etc, to be like. If you haven't changed your mind you don't have to reply to the new email.

We are working hard on the next update. We hope that we won't need more than a few weeks to release the update!

As always, have a great day and thank you for your continuing support!

Tuesday - June 10, 2014

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #38

by Myrthos, 12:30

The Balrum Kickstarter page has been updated with information on the latest version of the beta, which solves quite a few bugs.

First and foremost, thank you for everyone who sent us bug reports! We have been working on fixing these bugs and rethinking some elements of the game based on your feedback on the forums. It is time to release a new version of the beta. This version is mainly a bugfix version. There are a few content related updates but our main focus was to make the engine as bug free as possible. In the coming weeks we will fix the remaining few issues and any new bugs that we find. After that we will focus on content. Based on your feedback we know that we have to rethink and redesign pretty much all crafting systems and skills. So the upcoming update for the beta will be a major content update. You can download the updated game form the usual link.

It's great to see that there are people who are helping others on the forum. Also, there are people who spent a lot of their time helping us in identifying/reproducing bugs. For this we are sincerely grateful.

The link above will give you detailed information on what has been solved.

Wednesday - May 28, 2014

Balrum - New Beta Update

Since I haven't seen any new updates on the Balrum Kickstartrer page I went ahead, and checked the games forums. It seems the Beta got a new update last month.

Balrum v0.0.85_beta_002

"We updated the beta to version 002. If the window title says 002 than you have the newest version. If it displays Balrum_v0.0.85_beta instead of Balrum v0.0.85_beta_002 than you have an old version so please re-download the game. This is an important update so please make sure you have the 002 version." ~Balcony Team

Any bugs anyone finds need to be e-mailed to Balcony Team at: info@balconyteam.com or at: balcony.softworks@gmail.com. Which they prefer I do not know they just say to e-mail them with bug reports and explain how to replicate the bug if you can.

"There are a few areas that are considered really early prototype versions: -weapon crafting -armor crafting -bow abilities All crafting systems need more work and will be much more complex in the future! Also not all features are in the game (character creation).

We are planning to release a couple of updates for the beta version. With your kind help we hope to fix a few nasty bugs hiding in Darkwood so please if you find a bug and your time allows, send us an email describing the bug and how to reproduce it. Also if you find a fatal error (an error that will cause the game to crash) please send us the debug info by pressing the “Send debug.txt” button in the launcher." ~Balcony Team

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #37

Beta!

First of all, we are sorry for the extra delay! One thing we learned is that it might seem like there are no problems at all.. but sneaky problems always lurk in the shadows! Oh, and another thing is that we need to be more careful from now-on with deadlines.

All of you who are eligible to participate in the beta already received a key that will allow you to play the beta. For everyone else we put together a video showcasing the new content.

There are a few areas that are considered really early prototype versions: -weapon crafting -armor crafting -bow abilities. All crafting systems need more work and will be much more complex in the future! Also not all features are in the game (character creation).

We are planning to release a couple of updates for the beta version. With your kind help we hope to fix a few nasty bugs hiding in Darkwood so please if you find a bug and your time allows, send us an email describing the bug and how to reproduce it. Also if you find a fatal error (an error that will cause the game to crash) please send us the debug info by pressing the “Send debug.txt” button in the launcher.

Friday - January 31, 2014

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #36

Beta Delay

The beta is delayed until february. The delay is totally on us. We underestimated the work needed. Thankfully it's nothing too dramatic. We need a few extra weeks to finalise everything for you guys.

On the other side we have a lot of things to share this time around.

The main quest’s dialogs for chapter one are all done. We hired a british writer who is proofreading for us. :)

Our composer just finished working on the music for chapter one and all we can say is that it is much better than what we expected. Don’t get us wrong, our expectations were high but our composer exceeded them. Thanks Matt for your hard work! Check out Balrum’s main theme. (Just click for the music here - If the music does not start to play please refresh the page!)

All chapter one monster types are finished. There are 20 monsters in the game already! All of them use various spells/abilities against each other and of course against the player. :) We won’t show you all of them, but here is one new.

Monday - December 23, 2013

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #35

The secret of the golems.

As promised, here is an ingame video of the cave that we showed you last time. Our hero finds out, and quickly forgets the secret of the crystal golems. :) As you can hear, sound effects are being added to the game. We are really excited about the new environmental sounds in the caves. It is great to finally hear the game not only see it!

Tuesday - December 10, 2013

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #34

A New Environment!

Hello, everyone!

It's time for an update!

We are working on the chapter 1 dungeons and caves. Designing the caves is really refreshing, because we just finished with the grasslands (640000 tiles of landscape) and it is nice to work on a different kind of environment. :) Now we only show you 1 screenshot, but you can expect a video of this cave in the near future! ;)

Tuesday - October 29, 2013

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #33

Dungeons

Hello, everyone!

In this update you can see how dungeons will look like in the game! There will be at least another type of cave/dungeon wall tileset, so don't worry this is not the only design : (Click here for the image)

Thanks to our great graphics team things are going really smoothly! Also, we just received the first demo track of Balrum's main music theme and it is amazing! :)

Tuesday - September 24, 2013

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #31

Balrum has a new post-funding update with information about the games music, graphics, monster design, npc design, and add-ons.

Hello there!

Things are looking really good! The engine is really close to the feature freeze state, this means it is near complete!

Our graphics team will start to work in the coming days on the extra art that chapter one needs. We can't tell you a lot, but there are 8 new monsters that will be in chapter one and they are not your regular fantasy type monsters! Also, the caves in Balrum will look really good! ;)

We contacted a lot of musicians! This means that Balrum will have an amazing soundtrack in the near future! (if you are a musician and you contacted us in the past, but you have not received an email regarding the music of Balrum, please contact us)

Dear Backers, we sent out emails to those of you who bought some of the addons! If you bought addons, but somehow you have not recieved the email, please contact us!

We also sent out the design a monster, and design your NPC” emails! All of you have received the email, but if something went wrong please contact us!

Thursday - September 12, 2013

Balrum - Post-Funding Update #30

by Couchpotato, 01:16

Balrum has a new post-funding update that deals with ambient lighting, doors, water, new renderer, and the games save system.

We changed the way our renderer works mainly because when using the 2x zoom option there were a few errors that we needed to eliminate, but at the same time we also added ambient lighting. Ambient lighting will help us in creating the atmosphere of certain areas like swamps, dungeons..etc.

If you looked carefully enough at our pre-alpha videos you might noticed that doors were problematic. They were hard to select and they sometimes were rendered incorrectly. We fixed the doors and rewrote the „selection” algorithm so that everything can be selected with ease.

The savegame option was disabled in the pre-alpha demo but now it is working. The main thing that we really want with our save system is it to be patch friendly. This means that if we release a patch we want to make sure that you don't need to restart the game because we broke the system with the fixes included in the patch.

Also lakes and rivers are important. We have not shown you guys how our water effect looks because it will change and we are still not satisfied with it, but here it is so you can have an idea on how it will look.

If we reach a stretch goal with the kickstarter sum + PayPal we will announce it!

There are a few extra options that you can select like here on kickstarter. These extra options will be available for 30 days. After the 30 day period you will be only be able to purchase Balrum with no extras. Also after the 30 day period PayPal purchases won't count to unlock stretch goals.

Thank you for yours support guys! Let's hope that we can unlock a few stretch goals! :)

Friday - August 16, 2013

Balrum - Funded With A Miracle

Well a miracle did happen as Balrum earned over $13,000 in one day to get funded. Here is the new update from The Balcony Team to thank everyone.

We are funded! Balrum will be as big as we wanted it to be, we don't have to scale back! :) Thank you for supporting us! A lot of you pledged an enormous amount to help us get funded!

Exciting things will happen with Balrum in the coming months and we will keep you informed here on kickstarter and at our webpage! It was a hard Kickstarter but we made it! We are so touched by the great feedback that we recieved from you guys! We will setup a PayPal option so that people can still support us! Check out our website or click on the PayPal logo on our Kickstarter page! (It will be up and running in a few days)

WOW this is amazing!!

Thank you again to all of you who made Balrum possible! You made our dream possible!

Thursday - August 15, 2013

Balrum - Update #25, 24 hours left!

Balrum is entering the last 20 hours and still needs $10,000 to get funded. At this point things dont look to good but we have a new update. So keep spreading the word and a miracle might happen.

Hi there you guys! The last day is here! Less than 24 hours to go! We still need a bit but we can make it! Please help us spread the word, tell everyone you know, post on forums, send emails and do whatever you can. :)

Wednesday - August 14, 2013

Balrum - Update #24, The last 48 hours!

Balrum is entering the the last 40 hours and has another update for us. It's looking grim at this point but there is still time.

Hi there you guys! :) So much passion around the project! We are at the 48 hours mark! We still have a way to go, but we can do it! :)

Let's talk about the gift first :)

If you backed our project you will receive the expansion of Balrum for free!! The expansion will mainly focus on the islands of Balrum. So yes, if you helped us out here on Kickstarter you will get the expansion for free! We are super excited about this :), one word: voodoo, ok two words: voodoo, underworld. And.. you will be able to download 2 high resolution wallpapers. One Balrum wallpaper and one wallpaper about the expansion! And again, we deeply thank you for your support folks! Thank you!

Special Dungeon:

All of our backers will receive a special key that will unlock a special dungeon that can be found in the underground city. The underground city is where people escaped from the fiery wrath of the old gods ages ago. This is a special dungeon, you can only leave by the exit not the entrance. It will be a challenging dungeon with lots of surprises and secrets! Non backers will also be able to access this dungeon but they need to find the key and finding it will be a long process.

Monday - August 12, 2013

Balrum - Update #23, New Addons

Kickstarter only Add-Ons! What are add-ons? They're nice extras that you can add to your existing reward level, regardless of the reward you claimed. If you want an add-on, just increase your pledge without changing your existing reward. You can buy multiple addons. At the end of the campaign you'll receive an official email asking which add-on you wanted.

If you have a 200$ or more reward you will recieve all addons (if you want)!

DRM free digital soundtrack $8 : Get a digital copy of the music of Balrum. Extra copy of Balrum $10 : Now that you backed us you can get yourself, or for your friend, another copy of the game for less! Create a Magical Item $15 : Create your item that we will place in the world! Specify the item type, write it's lore, it's stats, describe it's icon! We will make an icon for it based on your description! Special animal tamer $20 : There are a few really exotic animals in the world of Balrum. You will be able to tame these animals. Players without this addon will be able to tame all the animals except these special ones. (these special animals are mainly cosmetically different but they will have a little extra in them from a gameplay standpoint) Ring of light! $20 : You will recieve a ring right when you start the game. This ring emits a constant light that is not flickering and if you have it you don't need to use torches. You can specify the color of the light!Bulk, get them all $60 : Get every Add-On for a special price!

Saturday - August 10, 2013

Balrum - Update #22, New Gameplay Video

Hi there folks! Here is 16 minutes of pure random gameplay from the kickstarter pre-alpha version. It's not much but we are getting there! :) (we simply could not cut out a few things because our machines are so slow...arrg)

Sunday - August 04, 2013

Balrum - Update #20, Content Density

by Couchpotato, 00:57

Balrum has had another quick update this time dealing the content density of the game.

Here you can see how we identify areas with low content. If an area is low on content we fill it up taking the surrounding areas into account. This little map shows you the vegetation/buildings and frendly/hostile NPCs. (this is only 1 map, we are planing to have at least 30 large mainland maps and dozens of dungeons)

Saturday - August 03, 2013

Balrum - Update #19, Lighting

In the video you can see how dynamic lighting works in action. There is a huge test light under the cursor, it pops from one tile to another without smooth fading but as you saw in previous videos, other (non test) lights have smooth fading (for example the light that the player emits has smooth fading).

This dynamic lighting works brilliantly on our "test" machine the HP Mini 2140, so you will be able to enjoy these effects on low end systems!

Friday - August 02, 2013

Balrum - Update #18, The Editor and Mod Support.

by Couchpotato, 00:58

The Balcony Team is back with another update for Balrum. This time the update shows the game editor you can use to make mods.

Here you can see how our not so human friendly editor looks like. We would love to polish and release our tools so you guys could create your own adventures, but we can't promise mod support right now! If we do well, we see no problem with working an extra few months on our tools so we could release them. (after the game's release ofc)

Monday - July 29, 2013

Balrum - Updates #16, Role-Playing and Kicking It Forward

The Balcony team has another update for Balrum. This time the topics include how you role play, and announcing they have joined Kicking It Forward.

Balrum is an RPG, but what is your role in the game? Who are you?

You are a 20 year old farmer boy who lives with his grandfather. During your years you learned how to be a decent carpenter, how to take care of your grandfather's farm and how to be a somewhat acceptable hunter. So in chapter one you will be playing the role of a young boy. People will ask you to help them build houses or repair structures, help in hunting and help with other people's farms.

You have a strong connection with your grandfather because he is the only family you know. Your parents died before your people entered the Dark Woods. You often ask about your parents but your grandfather always tells you that it's better if you don't know about them. Everyone in the Dark Woods like you, but somehow they seem distant. After chapter one you will know much more about yourself and you will have a purpose to leave the Dark Woods and explore the entire world of Balrum, from here on your actions will define the role that you play.

Kicking It Forward:

We are proud to announce that we joined the Kicking It Forward Community! We are pledging to put at least 5% of our profits back into the Kickstarter Community.

Saturday - July 27, 2013

Balrum - Updates #14 &15

by Couchpotato, 01:33

The Balcony team has released two more updates for Balrum. The topics talk about the games AI,writer, pets, voodoo, and new tiers.

AI:

Our AI system is affected by light and sound. This means that your footsteps might be heard, so if you want to be sneaky you should wear footwear that does not make a lot of noise! (of course you might want to create noise on purpose..to distract NPCs..noisemaker arrow..)

Also if you craft a weapon or create a camp..etc these activities make a lot of noise so be prepared to get unexpected visitors! :) As mentioned before, light plays a big role in our game. If you are in a spot that is well lit , you will be easier to spot at night! (don't forget that you can disable torches on the wall with your water arrows!)

As you know by now we are creating a living world! (check out our X update) And a living world needs rules:

If someone sees you stealing the guards will be alerted, or not if the person who saw you thinks that he can take you by himself! If you sleep in a bed that is not yours don't be surprised if you will get thrown out of that bed.

Don't even try to steal from a farm that is not your own, people will know that you are a thief and might not talk to you. (if you get caught of course) If you start a fight and there was no apparent reason to your violence, the guards will come for you!

There are other reason why you can get in trouble like if you practice magic at a place where it is prohibited or if you run around waving your weapon in a high security area.

It's not cheap to erease your criminal past!

There are options to save yourself, use the "forget" spell or simply get rid of the person who saw you. Although these options are only going to help you if the guards have not been alerted yet!

You will see patrolling guards and even monsters and this is where sneaking will be a really helpful skill.

Writer:

After we get funded we will hire a writer who will help us create high quality texts for the game.

Friday - July 26, 2013

Balrum - Update #13, System Requirements

by Couchpotato, 02:25

The Balcony Team has released another quick update for Balrum. The update explains what the system requirements will be, and they even show us a new video. The project sofar has only earned $10,416 of $50,000 with 20 days left.

When we started development our main goal with the engine was flexibility and performance. Since Balrum is a 2D game we wanted to make sure that we support even really old hardware! In the video below you can see Balrum running on a 2009 netbook, the HP Mini 2140.

This little machine helped us greatly in development since if you write bad code you will instantly see those pesky microseconds go up using this netbook. :) On a decent machine you see no performance problems even when you write really bad code since PCs nowadays are super fast! This netbook doesn't even break a sweat, so the „real” minimum system requirements are even lower than the following:

Tuesday - July 23, 2013

Balrum - Update #8, Building Your Home.

by Couchpotato, 01:49

The Balcony team is hard at work releasing more updates for it's kickstarter Balrum. Keep spreading the word as the game could use more funding.

Your home can be really important in Balrum. If you have a home people can visit you and even leave a quest or a note. If you sleep in your own bed you will gain various buffs for sleeping well. We give you total freedom in building your home. The only restriction is where you can build. This is not a real restriction because you will be able to build at hundreds of locations. You can build your farm right next to your home. Cooking, alchemy, creating weapons/armor and other skills will require special objects like crafting tables. You can build these „tables” right in your home.

Monday - July 22, 2013

Balrum - Update #7, Maps

by Couchpotato, 00:59

The Balcony Team has posted another update for Balrum, and this time it's to talk about maps. As of right now the kickstarter is on track with $7,784 with 24 days left. So keep spreading the news and ask other sites without spamming to post about the game.

As you know by now, Balrum is a tile based game. The word is put together from tiles. Similar games to Balrum have 100x100 or 200x200 size maps. Balrum has 400x400 maps and this lets us create insanely large dungeons and areas. Chapter one consists of 4 400x400 maps that are green land masses, and 2 400x400 dungeons.

The following chapter areas are connected and we plan to have 30 400x400 maps and dozens of smaller and larger dungeons. Chapter one takes place in the Dark Woods, about 30% of the 4 maps are dense forests, also there is a large lake in the middle of the Dark Woods. When the people settled in the woods they were together in one village but soon because religious and political differences, the village broke into two sepparate villages.

The villages need to work together to survive in the woods and this need creates interesting conflicts between them. You will also find people who decided not to be a part of the villages. You can find an anchient graveyard and a long forgotten small village that is overrun by giant spiders and you...yes we need to stop here now, or there will be no surprises left! :) You will reveal why people fear this place and other darks secrets of the woods.

Sunday - July 21, 2013

Balrum - Update #6 Your Farm

We are going to use Ida-s farm to show you how farming works at the moment in the game. As with pretty much everything, what you see is in alpha state. There will be magical plants that require a special environment, special fertilizer, and even special light!

Saturday - July 20, 2013

Balrum - Update #5, Creating your potion and 10%

Balrum has a new update with a video showing us how to create potions, and announcing the project has been 10% funded.

We just reached 10% of our goal!

Thank you so much for your support!

Now you will be able to see how big a difference potions and crafting in general can make in our game. Of course the stat balance is in alpha state so we might change a few things, and the plants that we use to create our potion in the video are not so easy to find!

Again we use our developer powers to show you this feature of the game! :)Drinking a potion that gives your character a boost in a certain stat that lasts for X turns will appear as a buff.

There are plants that can worsen the stats of your creation and there are plants that can greatly increase it's power. Also some of the plants in the world are good for increasing the buff duration of your potion.

Balrum - Kickstarter Updates #1-4

Since we are an unknown developer team we felt that we need to talk about ourselves a little bit. After that we will talk about Balrum too so hang on! :)

We are two greenhorn game developers who want to create an RPG that is not your typical RPG game and cannot be categorised so easily. Did I mention greenhorn? Yes, you need to start somewhere. :) We started to work on Balrum about two years ago. We created a custom engine because we wanted total control over our game and also we wanted to learn how things work inside a PC. The result is and engine that has low system requirements and is flexible enough for us to implement things pretty fast.

NEW REWARD. EARLY BIRD! Digital downloadable copy of Balrum: DRM-free for PC, Mac, and Linux. (you get the game for all platforms) Get the game for a special early bird price!

NEW REWARD. EARLY BIRD! (All previous rewards) and you get everything listed in the LORE reward, but for a special early bird price!

NEW REWARD. LORE: (All previous rewards) and your name will be inscribed on one of the worlds objects. This object might be a painting, book, statue, armor, weapon, letter, recipe, stone tablet or something alike.

Modding: We cannot guarantee that we will have modding tools at launch, but modding is something that we really would like to support! The editor that we wrote for the game is somewhat human friendly now, but it is certainly not ready for the masses. :) This means that after we release Balrum there is a good chance that we will be able to work on getting the editor in shape!

Translation: We support translators, they will be able to translate the games text. It will be simple to start translating because only xml files need to be altered.

Wednesday - July 17, 2013

Balrum - Kickstarter Launched

by Couchpotato, 02:20

The developers of Balrum have sent news that their kickstarter is now live. The Balcony Team is asking for $50,000 to finish and polish the game. Give the game a look I don't think you will be disappointed.

An open world fantasy RPG with building, farming and crafting. For PC, Mac and Linux.

Now that Nasrus revealed his plot, the kings of Balrum sent their armies to the borders of the unknown lands captured by Nasrus. The power of the undead armies had been greatly underestimated. No one survived the battles. Without the armies of the kings, chaos has overcome Balrum. Large bandit clans formed and started to live by their own rules. Soon the kings of Balrum had fallen. Two little villages stood up against the new bandit rulers and decided that the only way they will survive is if they hide in the Dark Woods. No one dare enter the Dark Woods and this is what the villagers took advantage of. A horrible deal has been made, but the villagers are safe for now. The undead hordes of Nasrus are still waiting at the borders, but they can march into the heart of Balrum anytime their lord commands and there is no one to stop them. The people wonder why the good gods of Balrum, Adacus and Eogor don’t seem to be interested in the events that took place.

Tuesday - July 16, 2013

Balrum - Thanks To Our Community

Balrum has a new update on changes to the game thanks to community input. In case anyone forgot Balrum was announced last month, but the developers pushed back the kickstarter to improve the game.

Here are a few things that are in the game because of our community! A huge thanks for you guys! And thanks to you, we now know that we are on the right track!

Hope you like the list!

Wound system: For example if a bear critical strikes you, there is a huge chance that you will receive a bleed debuff that might last for a 100 turns, to get rid of this debuff you need to properly tend to your wounds!

A little randomness to crafting: Now you know that nearly in every game if you find a

recipe, that recipe will give you an item exactly what it describes. What we mean by a „little randomness to crafting” is that there is a 20-30% random factor to every crafting.

Crafting outcome: You can fail, critically fail, succeed, and critically succeed in creating your items. For example if you critically succeed in creating your potion it will be more powerful than a simple successful create.

Truly Cruel AI: We wanted to make bosses in the game really hard to defeat, and our community voted yes on our idea, so you can expect bosses that are going to be a real challenge.

Rumors: NPCs will talk about rumors and you will be able to see what they are talking about in small and hopefully not ugly chat bubbles.

Random events: -Forest fire -Boss spawn -Epidemics -Rare mobs that only spawn at a specific time and place, for a specific amount of time. NPCs can give you hints where these mobs have been seen ..etc. (or they might spawn if the proper ritual is completed)Don’t forget replay value: Each big guild in the game will give the player a different approach to the game, also if you choose different skills to level this will also give you a different feel to your character. (this means that we will give true meaning to skills and they will make the game different)

Naturally replay value was in our original plans, but the guys on the forums directed us in the right way with it.